Upcoming Events

November 18, 9:30-11am EST / 3:30-5pm CET

Zoom seminar

Ra'anan Boustan (Yale) presents: Jonah and the Three Fish in the Synagogue at Huqoq. Between Mosaik and Midrash, co-authored with Karen Britt

Ra‘anan Boustan (Yale University) and Karen Britt (Northwest Missouri State University)

This lecture considers a mosaic panel depicting a scene from the biblical story of Jonah the Prophet found in the late fourth-century synagogue in the village of Huqoq (eastern Lower Galilee). The Jonah panel is perhaps most noteworthy for its striking presentation of Jonah being swallowed by three successively larger fish. Curiously, the motif of the three fish makes its first appearance in textual sources only in the eleventh century, more than half a millennium after the Huqoq mosaic was installed, when it shows up in various forms in both Jewish and Islamic traditions concerning the figure of Jonah/Yūnus. We assess whether and how the distribution of this motif across visual and textual mediums can shed light on the relationship between rabbinic midrash and the visual culture of the late antique synagogue.

Zoom

April 2–3, 2025

International Conference

Conference: Co-produced Rituals between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam: Uncovering a Common Late Antique and Early Medieval Religious Culture

Organized by Caroline Bridel and Maureen Attali

Historical and anthropological studies often point out what they consider to be ritual similarities between Jews, Christians, and Muslims. The study of both literary and material data suggests that many of those rituals originated from or developed upon practices performed by all inhabitants of the Roman and/or Sassanian empires. This workshop proposes to investigate the formation processes and early development and contexts of so-called Abrahamic rituals through the notion of religious co-production.

Click this link for the Call for Papers. Proposals are due by July 15, 2024.

Bern, Switzerland

June 10–13, 2025

Conference

Conference: The “Excluded Third” in the Co-Production of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

Organized by Mercedes García-Arenal, Katharina Heyden, David Nirenberg, and Davide Scotto

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are often understood as an ensemble of three (‘Abrahamic,’ ‘monotheistic,’ scriptural, or prophetic) religious communities and traditions. But often when adherents of two of these “sibling” religions interact, the third is treated as a figure to be marginalized, stigmatized, or instrumentally exploited vis-à-vis the others. This conference proposes to explore this dynamic of the excluded third.

Click this link for the Call for Papers. Proposals are due by June 1, 2024.

Villa Vigoni (Como Lake, IT)

Stay informed about our latest news & events

(click below and email us to subscribe)

Subscribe to our mailing list